Nick Fuentes

Nick Fuentes (born August 18, 1998) is an American white supremacist and far-right political commentator. Fuentes gained prominence when he attended the “Unite the Right” white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017. As a member of the alt-right, he and his followers (known as “Groypers”) have often conflicted and created tension with mainstream conservative politicians and commentators, including Pres. Donald Trump, Charlie Kirk, and Tucker Carlson.

Fuentes was raised in the Chicago suburb of La Grange Park. He began his livestreaming career while attending Boston University, where he studied politics and international relations. In February 2017 his nightly show, America First with Nicholas J. Fuentes, debuted on the Right Side Broadcasting Network. However, the network cut ties with Fuentes after he attended the “Unite the Right” rally in August that year, which resulted in three deaths.

After leaving Right Side Broadcasting, Fuentes and fellow “Unite the Right” attendee James Allsup collaborated on the Nationalist Review podcast. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the two parted ways by early 2018. In April that year, Fuentes spoke at a conference hosted by the white nationalist group American Renaissance. In 2020 Fuentes launched the America First Political Action Conference (AFPAC), which was marketed as an alternative to the mainstream Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) taking place the same weekend. That same year he established the nonprofit group America First Foundation, which bills itself as an “organization dedicated to crafting a new vision for the American nation,” championing “the role of God in society and upholding the principles of Nationalism, Christianity, and Traditionalism.”

As Fuentes gained popularity, his followers began mobilizing into a network of white nationalists known as Groypers. The Groyper Army, named after a racist version of the Pepe the Frog meme, is known for using irony and humor to popularize its viewpoints. (This practice also gives the group a sheen of deniability, allowing it to dismiss outrageous statements as “just a joke.”) The group shares similar anti-immigration, anti-feminist, and anti-LGBTQ+ stances with the alt-right, though it attempts to distinguish itself through a focus on Christianity. Some of the movement’s beliefs—Fuentes is a Holocaust denier and has praised Adolf Hitler—have stoked division between Groypers and some mainstream conservatives.

In a series of incidents throughout 2019—known as the first “Groyper War”—members of the movement attended college campus talks hosted by Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, where they would “troll” him and his panelists through questions intended to unveil what Groypers saw as the mainstream conservative movement’s failings, such as its support of Israel. After Kirk’s assassination in September 2025, there was speculation that the alleged shooter, Tyler Robinson, might be a member of the Groyper Army. Indeed, among the first to raise the possibility were Groypers themselves, who recognized that evidence left at the scene—as well as photos in Robinson’s social media history—indicated that Robinson was steeped in the same Internet meme culture that informed much of the Groypers’ online vocabulary. Investigators did not report any connection between Robinson and the Groypers, however, and Fuentes responded to the shooting by declaring, “To all of my followers: if you take up arms, I disavow you. I disown you in the strongest possible terms.”

After Trump’s loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election, Fuentes became prominently involved in the “Stop the Steal” movement, the aim of which was to stop Biden from “stealing” the election. There is no evidence that Fuentes stormed the U.S. Capitol during the January 6 attack, but he attended Trump’s speech before the event and encouraged others to enter the building. Despite his defense of Trump, Fuentes was not embraced by mainstream conservatives: After a 2022 dinner at Mar-a-Lago attended by Trump, Fuentes, and Kanye West, mainstream conservatives, including Mitch McConnell, Kevin McCarthy, and Trump’s former vice president, Mike Pence, spoke out against Fuentes.

A second iteration of the Groyper War took place in 2024, when Fuentes urged his followers to criticize Trump’s presidential campaign on X (formerly Twitter) and Truth Social, hoping to push Trump’s political platform further to the right. Fuentes celebrated Trump’s election with a repudiation of the reproductive rights slogan “My body, my choice” with a post on X that read: “Your body, my choice. Forever.” During Trump’s second term Fuentes continued to criticize the president on issues of immigration and foreign affairs, as well as Trump’s refusal to release files related to Jeffrey Epstein. Historically, Fuentes has clashed with other prominent conservative figures such as Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens. He apparently achieved a rapprochement with Carlson, however, as Fuentes was featured in a friendly, wide-ranging interview on Carlson’s podcast in October 2025.

Fuentes has faced continual challenges publishing his content, with many social platforms such as X and Facebook, payment platforms like Venmo and PayPal, and streaming platforms including YouTube and Twitch suspending him (though X reinstated his account under Elon Musk’s ownership).